(reprinted from: Delicious/tsangal)
Posts Tagged ‘cooking’
Fresh Sriracha (aka, home made ‘Rooster’) – Recipes – food52
Friday, September 3rd, 2010Expensive cleavers are a waste of money
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010(reprinted from: Boing Boing)
I love many things about chef J.Kenji Lopez-Alt, not least his fantastic name, but today I'm enamored of his take on the cleaver. A cleaver is both metaphorically and literally a blunt instrument, he writes at Serious Eats:
...avoid expensive Japanese or German cleavers, period. If they sell it at Williams-Sonoma, you don't want it. A cleaver is meant to be only for the toughest of the tough jobs, and will get beat up. It doesn't require the razor sharp edge-maintaining abilities of expensive German or Japanese steel, so there's no sense in paying over-the-odds prices for one when cheaper models are just as serviceable.There's more, and it's all a breath of fresh air. I particularly like Lopez-Alt's brisk shredding of the $160 Shen Kun Onion Meat Cleaver, which he figures costs about $145 too much: Please. Unless you need a simultaneously pretty and menacing tool to perform ritual sacrifices with, it has no business anywhere near a real kitchen. His final recommendation is the very unsexy General Purpose Cleaver Knife with Wood Handle from Dexter-Russell. At $40 it's more than twice as pricey as Lopez-Alt's all-time favorite cleaver, which he picked up for $15 at a restaurant supply store in Boston. But the Dexter-Russell will do the job, he writes, and more -- it will deliver "a lifetime of joyful chicken-hacking."
The Word of Mouth KFC challenge | Life and style | guardian.co.uk
Monday, July 26th, 2010(reprinted from: Delicious/tsangal)
The Word of Mouth KFC challenge | Life and style | guardian.co.uk
Monday, July 26th, 2010(reprinted from: Delicious/tsangal)
Common Cooking Myths You Can Easily Dispel [Science]
Friday, July 9th, 2010(reprinted from: Lifehacker)
Book: Ratio
Sunday, June 21st, 2009Ratio
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
by Michael Ruhlman.
Scribner, 2009.
Ruhlman gives readers the ratios behind many basic recipes, and tells you when you should follow them and when you may need to make adjustments or what variations you might want to try. Most of the ratios are related to baking, but also included are some meat-based ratios, stocks and sauces. Knowing and understanding these ratios will ultimately give you great flexibility in the kitchen.
Rating: 8/10
Links:
Book: Heat
Friday, March 28th, 2008
Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
by Bill Buford.
Anchor Canada, 2007
In Heat, Bill Buford, a writer for The New Yorker, leaves his job to become a cook at Babbo, a top Italian restaurant in Manhanttan. Buford has written a clear and interesting account of his struggles to learn his way in a fast-paced and demanding kitchen as a professional cook, and really brings to life the environment and the personalities of the people that he works with. Eventually, as he becomes more confident in his abilities and his passion for cooking grows, he is drawn to Italy by the desire to learn authentic Italian cooking techniques, including the butchering of meat. As he studies under some of Italy’s masters, we are also treated to a sentimental overview of the history and traditions of Italian cuisine. Bill Buford’s memoir is a well-written, fascinating book and I really enjoyed it.
Rating: 8/10
Links: